Metaphors for Change: Finding Balance in a Polarized World, Part 2

Recap

In Part 1, I discussed the prevalence of win-lose ways of thinking and speaking and how they create polarization and conflict across the spectrum of human systems. Still, I would suggest that people are not irrevocably stuck in a given point of view. In fact as an educator I believe that anyone can learn to find value in different worldviews.

The Systems Metaphor: The Resurgence of the Rational

In the second half of the 20th century, a series of tectonic changes swept away the Enlightenment's certainty of progress and any remaining illusion of stasis. New approaches were beginning to emerge that would recast our understanding of organizations in ways that were both a leap forward and a reinforcement of the rational principles of the machine metaphor.

Management discourse began to change midcentury with the advent of computers, operations research, and general systems theory. As a new worldview emerged, practitioners began to see management as a kind of systems analysis and organizations as entities that could be directed and controlled by expert managers.

The Organic Metaphor: The Elegance of Nature

The organic metaphor is emerging as a rich source of innovation for organizational change. This metaphor rests on two complementary schools of thought.

The first comes from "new sciences" like quantum mechanics and complexity theory, which upended Newtonian physics and introduced new thinking about change in natural systems. Meg Wheatley (1992), for example, was inspired by dissipation, a term used in chemistry to describe how disequilibrium stimulates change, allowing a system to "re-emerge in a form better suited to the demands of the present environment."

Earth's natural systems are the second source of inspiration for the organic metaphor. This perspective has deep roots in indigenous wisdom, which long predates Western thought. As aboriginal scholar Grace Ouellette explains, the "interconnectedness of all things and their dependence upon each other for survival" are central to indigenous traditions.

Transcendence, Agency, and Agility of Mind

The great pioneer of operations research, Russell Ackoff (1981), was fond of describing a set of ill-defined, interrelated, disorderly problems as a "mess." Today, few would argue that organizations face an unprecedented number of messes that force them to operate at warp speed and in a state of perpetual uncertainty.

At the very least, these metaphors bring to light the worldviews that guide our daily actions and decisions. Becoming aware of our predisposed beliefs and assumptions is a liberating first step.